Students of Teach for America teachers score higher in math, study says

Elisa Villanueva Beard, center, works with students in a Houston school earlier this year. She is the co-CEO of Teach for America.

Students assigned to Teach for America teachers scored higher than those assigned to other teachers on end-of-year math tests, according to a study released Tuesday.

“We found that the difference in scores is equivalent to the gains from an additional 2.6 months of math instruction,” said Melissa Clark, the principal investigator in the study. It was released by Mathematica Policy Research and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Services.

The research is the largest, most rigorous assessment of secondary school math teachers in prep programs to date, said Clark. The analysis included more than 4,500 students from 45 schools and 11 districts in eight states during the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years.

Teach for America recruits begin their service by teaching for two-years in a high-poverty community after five weeks of instruction.

The program is often criticized because of the teachers’ short two-year commitment, but the findings suggest that over the long term, continuing to fill a position with Teach for America teachers who depart after a few years would lead to higher student math achievement than filling the same position with a teacher trained elsewhere who would remain in the position longer.

More than 2,000 Teach for America teachers have taught in Houston’s lowest income schools, reaching nearly 200,000 students collectively. This year, nearly 400 corps members will teach thousands of students across Houston with more than 100 of them working with Houston Independent School District, the seventh largest district in the nation.
“These are highly educated, motivated teachers from some of the most prestigious universities in America who are willing to take two years of their lives to make a difference with students that are the most at risk in the county,” said HISD spokesman Jason Spencer.